


The Losing Side

by decrescendo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, His Last Vow, Hurt/Comfort, John is a Very Good Doctor, M/M, Missing Scenes, Nightmares, Recovery, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2302046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decrescendo/pseuds/decrescendo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“They’re putting me down too now.  It’s no fun, is it?”</i>
</p><p>Sherlock is shot, John is a doctor, and sentiment isn’t always a weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Losing Side

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not be deceived by the chapter markings; this work is far from complete. I am completely unsure of how long this is going to end up - I don't have any idea at all of where it's going, really - so I'm just going to go ahead and post the beginning here. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
> 
> \-- After a six month hiatus, I've finally updated! I realize this update is tiny and it ends practically mid-thought, so sorry about that. I just wanted to get this bit up tonight and I'll try to get to a more legitimate break within the next couple of days. Thanks for bearing with me!

 

“You’ll need someone to look after you, of course.”

Sherlock had not been paying much attention up until this point, but now John felt him raise his head to stare at the doctor. 

“Of course we can easily find a nurse to assist you –” she continued, but Sherlock cut her off.

“Sorry?” he demanded, sounding more alert than he had since waking up.

“A nurse,” said the doctor again, and talked over Sherlock’s protestations.  “Mr. Holmes, if it were up to me, you would not be leaving the hospital at all for quite some time.  As it is…”  She paused, and John fought back a smile at the sour look that came across her face.  He had seen that look far too often on the people forced to do things they’d rather not by one or both of the Holmes brothers, and this situation was no different.  “As it is, you’ve _somehow_ been cleared for release, but you’re by no means fully recovered, and you cannot be allowed to live on your own in this state.”

Sherlock smirked, and John felt his spirits lift slightly; after the events of the past few days, it was nice to see some semblance of humor on the detective’s face.

“Thank you,” he said, “but I’ve got a doctor already.”

 

\--

 

_“She saved my life.”_

_"She shot you.”_

_“Er, mixed messages, I grant you.”_

John watched, uncharacteristically numb with shock, as Sherlock was taken down the stairs and out of the flat to the waiting ambulance.  After a moment, he turned and looked at Mary, who also had not moved.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but John decided at the last moment that he did not want to hear it.  With a slight shake of his head, he turned and hurried out just in time to see Sherlock, quickly approaching unconsciousness, being maneuvered into the back of the ambulance.

“Is he going to be alright?” John asked the nearest paramedic.

She nodded, but he got the feeling that it was more to reassure him than out of any real awareness of Sherlock’s condition.

John returned the nod, and without waiting to ask or be asked, stepped to forward to climb into the ambulance.

“John!”

Mary had come out too, and she stood uncertainly on the doorstep, clutching her coat around herself.

“John, I –”

Her face was as pale as he had ever seen it, eyes wide, hopeful and hopeless at the same time.  This was the woman he had fallen in love with.  The woman he had married, the woman he had _chosen._ The woman he was supposed to love more than anyone else in the world.

“I can’t deal with you right now.”  He climbed into the back of the ambulance.

 

\--

 

If the situation had been different, if Sherlock had just been injured on a case, if none of the last three years had happened, John would be going on about _how could you have roped me into that one now I’ll have to take time off to lug your sorry arse off the couch every now and then and make you endless amounts of tea and food you won’t eat_. 

As it was, the moment the doctor left the room, Sherlock sagged visibly and let out a breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan.  John stood up from the uncomfortable plastic chair he’d pulled up next to the bed.  “How are you feeling?”

Sherlock shot him a glare, but couldn’t seem to muster the energy to answer. 

John tried again.  “Are you ready to go?”

“Of course,” snapped Sherlock, pulling his best _why must everyone be such an idiot_ face as he started to stand up.  “Honestly, John, if I knew you were going to coddle me to whole time –”  He broke off, wincing, as his feet took on his whole weight.  “– I’d have asked for one of their nurses,” he finished, but his voice had lost all its venom.

“Here,” said John softly, stepping forward and putting an arm around Sherlock’s waist to support him.  

“I’m _fine._ ”  But instead of taking another step, Sherlock sunk back onto the bed.

John sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose.  When he looked back up, Sherlock was still perched on the side of the bed, looking humiliated but trying very hard to hide it.

“Sherlock.”  John lowered himself onto the bed next to the detective, who was staring down at his knees.  “Hey.  Look at me.  Look at me.”  John tried to smile encouragingly, but he knew it probably looked more like a grimace.  “You’ve got to let me help you, Sherlock.  Okay?  You were shot barely a week ago and you had internal bleeding and thanks to Mycroft’s meddling you are being released from hospital _way_ too early.  So in exchange for that, you need to let someone take care of you.  It’s a hired nurse or it’s me, Sherlock.  I know which one you’d prefer, but you’ve got to let me do my job.”

Sherlock had grown steadily redder throughout John’s little speech.  It was several long seconds before he said, very quietly, “Okay.” 

“Okay.  Good.”  John cleared his throat, suddenly out of words.  “Okay.  Are you ready to go, then, or would you rather rest a moment?”  With any other patient, John would have suggested a wheelchair, but he knew Sherlock’s tolerance would not stretch quite that far.

“Let’s go,” said Sherlock, and this time he permitted John’s steadying arm around his waist as they slowly made their way out of the room.

 

\--

 

_“Sherlock.”_

_“…We’re losing you.”_

_“…Sherlock?”_

It was agony for John Watson, sitting in the back of an ambulance with Sherlock for the second time in just days, calling to him in a carefully controlled voice that he knew the man could not hear.  It was agony, repeating the same words he had said days before, made all the worse because time he knew who had shot him.

Mary.

_But she wasn’t supposed to be like that._

John squeezed his eyes shut.  He couldn’t think about that, not now.  He distracted himself by talking to Sherlock some more: “Come on.  Sherlock.  You pulled through the first time.  You can…” 

(Some world John lived in, where pleading with his dying best friend to stay alive was a good _distraction._ )

“…do this.”  His voice broke and he was mindful of the worried glances a couple of the paramedics shot his way, but he did not let go of Sherlock’s hand.

Three days, _three fucking days,_ and they were already doing this again.  John decided then and there that Sherlock Holmes needed to pick a side and stick with it: live or die.  He couldn’t have both.

 

\--

 

It was strange, being the one left to pay the cabbie not because Sherlock had already run ahead but because Sherlock was still seated, waiting for John to help him stand up.  John did so without a word; he knew the detective would not appreciate any meaningless reassurances he could offer, and frankly, he didn’t feel up to making them.  John Watson had never been more tired in his entire life.  Finding out his wife had shot his best friend will do that to a man.

  _Jesus._

He was pressed tightly enough to the detective’s side that by the time they made it to the front door John could feel him trembling slightly.  As much as he knew Sherlock hated hospitals, John still thought that he was out far too early, especially if Sherlock was exhausted just from walking across the pavement from the cab to the door.  The stairs, he knew, were going to be hell.

John was still fumbling with the keys when the door swung inward.  “Oh, _Sherlock!_ ” exclaimed Mrs. Hudson, reaching out as if to pull him into a hug.

John held up a hand to stop her.  “Not now, Mrs. Hudson,” he said wearily. 

“Are you boys alright?”  She maneuvered backwards to stand in the doorway of her own apartment as John and Sherlock made their way in, her eyes growing wide with concern as she realized that Sherlock was not standing on his own.  “Oh, Sherlock…”

“We’re fine, Mrs. Hudson.”  John contemplated the seventeen steep steps.  “Just tired.”  Tired and full of bullet holes.  Not a big deal.

“Would you like me to bring up some tea?”

A cup of tea made by _somebody else_ had never sounded so wonderful in John’s life, but he knew Sherlock would not appreciate having Mrs. Hudson in the flat.  He hated for even John to see him in such a weakened state; it would not be helpful to add in Mrs. Hudson’s presence as well.

John took a deep breath and lightly ran his hand up and down Sherlock’s side.  The next few weeks were not going to be easy.

 

\--

 

This time the name that came out of Sherlock’s mouth when he woke was the right one.

“John…?”

“Oh, god, Sherlock…”  John leaned forward and very gently pushed the man down as he struggled to sit up.  “Shh.  I’m right here.”

Sherlock blinked blearily at him.  “John,” he said again, tasting the name.  His voice was dry and cracked.

“Here,” said John, “have some water.”  And it was all very similar to three days ago when they had gone through nearly this exact same routine, the only variation being the name Sherlock uttered upon waking.  Mary.  It all made sense now. 

The second difference came three hours later, when Sherlock woke a second time, and John was far less sympathetic and concerned than he had been the first time around.  Instead, he shouted a bit about how much of an idiot Sherlock was, _such a bloody idiot, I can’t believe you,_ before giving up on being angry and telling Sherlock again and again how relieved he was, because he had forgotten that bit before, and after the fall John had decided that he didn’t tell Sherlock how much he mattered nearly enough.

 

\--

 

Sherlock was visibly shaking by the time John lowered him slowly and carefully onto the sofa.  He leaned back instantly, sinking into the cushions and closing his eyes.  John felt his heart clench at the sight and tried not to think too hard about the woman who had done this.

He hadn’t seen Mary since he left her behind to join Sherlock in the ambulance.  He’d been back to their house only once, to collect some clothes and drop them off at Baker Street before heading to the hospital, and she hadn’t been in, but she clearly still lived there; there had been a half-full mug of coffee in the sink and the sheets on one side of the bed were rumpled. 

He missed her.  Not the woman who had shot his best friend in cold blood, the woman who had been lying since they day they met, but Mary, his Mary.  He missed having a warm body to wake up next to, solid and dependable.  He missed her laugh, he smile.  Fuck it, he missed the sex. 

But he knew, any time he let himself consider it too carefully, that it was never enough for him.  She would tuck her head onto his shoulder while they were watching telly and he would love it, love her, but underneath it all he was always craving a different sitting room with a different television set and a different voice making much ruder commentary.  As much as he loved his life with Mary, a part of him still longed for Sherlock.         

Well.  He’d gotten that wish, he supposed.

Sherlock seemed to be in very real danger of falling asleep right there.  He was already slipping sideways and did not seem to notice.  “Sherlock,” said John, crouching in front of him and putting a hand on his shoulder.  “Sherlock, wake up.  You can’t go to sleep on the sofa.”

“Umph.”  In spite of his irritation at being woken, Sherlock opened his eyes and struggled back into a sitting position without having to be asked again.  John kept a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, even though it was probably unnecessary. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “you can take a nap soon, okay?  But first you’ve got to get some food or something in you and you definitely need a bath.”  He went into the kitchen to start preparing tea.

Neither John nor Sherlock had realized at first just how difficult this might be; both of them had been anticipating a situation in which Sherlock would more or less go about his usual business minus the chasing criminals around London, and John would be there to nag him into eating and sleeping and occasionally being responsible about his injuries, which were all things John had always done anyway.  John had witnessed firsthand the crestfallen look on Sherlock’s face when the doctor had explained: aside from the complications of the bullet wound itself, the two surgeries in such quick succession, not to mention the inappropriate level of exertion that had occurred between them, had essentially shattered the immune system that was already nearing its limit from years of not eating or sleeping properly.  Sherlock was at a much higher risk for illness than usual – was already ill, a bit, with a slight fever that hadn’t quite gone away – and John knew that even the world’s only consulting detective, who had endured countless injuries before, had not anticipated just how agonizingly slow gunshot recovery was. 

The doctor had let the pair of them go home unattended by any hospital personnel only after a very long and strict lecture about the proper eating, sleeping, and bathing that were essential to preventing a third emergency hospital admission.  Sherlock had rolled his eyes through the whole thing, but John was not about to let any of the instructions slip.  After all, he himself would have much preferred if Sherlock were still in hospital.

The kettle switched off and John prepared Sherlock’s tea exactly how he liked it, not having to pay attention to the actions that were still muscle memory even after two years apart.  He didn’t bother with his own cup before returning to the sitting room with Sherlock’s to find the man nearly passed out again on the sofa. 

“Hey,” he said, gently pushing Sherlock back upright and sitting down next to him.  “Stay awake for me.  You survived a bullet to the liver; you’re not going to die on me now from dehydration.”  He passed the mug into Sherlock’s unsteady hands and watched him carefully as he took slow, steady sips. 

“You think you can manage some toast or something?” John asked when the tea was half gone.  Sherlock shook his head and John didn’t press the issue.  He remembered all too well how his appetite had all but vanished after his own gunshot wound.

After a just a couple more mouthfuls, Sherlock involuntarily made a face and lowered his mug so that it rested on his knee.  John took it and placed it on the table.  “How are you feeling?” he asked, knowing that he could not completely abide by Sherlock’s request not to “coddle” him while still taking proper care of his flatmate. 

Sherlock’s harshness had apparently drained away with his appetite, and he only hesitated a moment before answering shakily, “I don’t think the tea is agreeing with me.”

“Do you need a bin?” asked John, carefully remaining calm but standing up immediately, not relishing the thought of cleaning Sherlock’s vomit out of the rug.

Sherlock shook his head.  “No.  I don’t think…no.”

“All right.”  John sat back down and put a hand tentatively on Sherlock’s shoulder.  He thought through his next words carefully, afraid of sounding too much like a mother hen, but decided to hell with it, he was inevitably going to become a mother hen anyway after a few days of this.  “How about a bath then sleep?”      

Sherlock shot him a weak glare, just as John had anticipated, but did not argue.  “Okay.”

John stood.  “Okay,” he repeated back, and was unsure where to go from there.  He couldn’t leave Sherlock alone in the bath in this state; as an army doctor, he’d seen too many people survive horrific injuries just to die later from something as simple as drowning when trying to bathe unsupervised while still in recovery.  However, John was hesitant to break this news to Sherlock.  He had a feeling that saying “Hey, mate, go ahead and undress and I’ll wait right here and watch you take a bath” wouldn’t go over very well. 

Deciding not to worry about that until they at least got into the loo, John extended a hand to Sherlock and helped him up, shifting as most of the taller man’s weight settled on his shoulders.  “What would you do without me?” John asked lightly, hoping that some of their usual banter would distract Sherlock a bit from the obvious pain he was in.

“John,” said Sherlock, “I don’t know what I did.”

 

\--

 

John had spent most of Sherlock’s second hospital stay sitting by his bed alternatingly thinking very hard and trying very hard not to think about the situation with Mary.  Considering that he was unwilling to leave the hospital for any long period of time and that the only thing there for him to do was to watch Sherlock’s heart rate pulse steadily on the screen.  He timed his thoughts to the beat.

_Thump._

I trusted her.

_Thump-thump._

She lied.

_Thump._

She shot him.

_Thump-thump._

She saved him.

“Fuck, Sherlock,” John said aloud midway through the second day.  The man still had not woken up.  “If you don’t…if you leave me, here…If you leave me again…”  He stopped, swallowing hard.

The fact of the matter was that John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes more than he had loved anybody his entire life.  The fact of the matter was that John would leave Mary in an instant if the alternative was losing Sherlock again. 

He had been a married man for several months now, and had spent all of it wishing he could go back home. 

“…don’t leave me again.”

 

\--

 

John lowered Sherlock as gently as he could manage onto the closed toilet before going to turn on the faucet in the bath, wondering how exactly they were going to proceed with this.  If nothing else, there was no way Sherlock would be able to adequately wash himself without getting the bandages wet, and there was no way John was going to leave him alone with an exposed bullet wound – albeit a healing one – knowing all too well the man’s blatant disregard for his own well being.  Sherlock would decide the stitches itched and scrub them loose.

“John.”

John turned back to his friend, preparing to catch him as he slipped to the floor in exhaustion or something equally dramatic, but instead found Sherlock smiling tiredly at him.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he said.  “If it makes you feel any better, I can bathe with my pants on.”

John sighed.  Of course Sherlock could read his thoughts in the slump of his shoulders or the curve of his eyebrows.  He let out a shaky laugh.  “Yeah, okay.”

“The bath is going to overflow.”

“Shit.”  John quickly shut off the faucet and drained some of the excess water to get it back to the right level.  “Okay.  Okay.  You ready?”

“Of course, John,” said Sherlock, but did not quite achieve his usual level of exasperation.

“Right.”  John just stood and looked at Sherlock.  “Right, then.  Um, do you want me to…”

“Of, for god’s sake, John.”  Sherlock shot him a look that was both a glare and deeply amused and took off his shirt.

He’d seen it before, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier for John to be confronted with the bandaging that still covered the _hole_ in Sherlock’s bloody _chest._ He took a deep breath, knowing the bandages would have to be removed but not sure he wanted to face the wound itself.  _Pull yourself together, Watson.  You’ve stitched up men far worse than this._

“I guess we’re a matching set now,” said Sherlock quietly, and John suddenly felt himself alarmingly close to tears.

Not trusting his voice to stay steady, he silently knelt in front of Sherlock and, very gently, began to unwind the bandages from around his torso, carefully not looking at the bullet hole.

“Alright,” he said once he had collected himself a bit.  “Can you stand if I help you?”

Sherlock nodded, and John rose to place his hands just above Sherlock’s waist.  Sherlock rose slowly, putting his hands on John’s shoulders for leverage, and for a moment they just stood there, caught in an embrace that almost resembled dancing.  John felt a blush warm his cheeks and looked away, clearing his throat. 

"John."

"Right.  Of course."  

John helped  Sherlock to sit down in the tub, naked except for his now sodden pants.  John crouched on the floor next to him and made an offer:

"Would you rather I look away or would you like my help?"

He fully expected Sherlock to snap at him; to demand to know why he couldn't simply be left alone.  Under normal circumstances, John knew Sherlock would have made some remark about how-many-years-of-medical-training-did-it-take-to-help-me-bathe, and then reminded his blogger irritably that after surviving a bullet to the chest, a warm bath was hardly going to do him in.  All the detective said, though, was, "It hurts when I raise my arms too high," which John took as a cue to smile softly and dip a cup into to the bathwater to wet Sherlock's hair.

John washed his friend in silence, concentrating harder than was probably necessary on the simple task.  He couldn't help but smile as Sherlock let out a contented and completely involuntary sigh at the sensation of John gently working shampoo through his curls. 

It was strange, this interaction; to bathe another person was the most intimate of rituals, and although John managed to carry it out with efficient professionalism, he couldn't help but be incredibly moved by the amount of trust Sherlock had placed in him.  Not just now, but always: as John rinsed the soap from Sherlock's hair and started on his back, he thought back to the countless times the world's only consulting detective had allowed John to see past his cold and arrogant facade.  

Just after what they had taken to calling The Pool Incident: their positions were reversed for a night, and it was John who woke to shouts coming from the downstairs bedroom.  He had gone to Sherlock's room and found the man tossing and turning, calling out to John, looking more afraid than John had ever seen him.  The doctor simply crawled into bed and held Sherlock's shaking form until a soft grey light crept in through the windows.

That time Sherlock had gotten the flu, and was so miserable that John hadn't even bothered to scold him for not getting his shots, and John took five days off work to make Sherlock tea and watch movies with him and rub his back and stroke his hair while he vomited until there was nothing left to come up, and then John made chicken soup and fed it to Sherlock as if he were four years old again.

Their last night in Dartmoor, after killing the "hound" and watching Dr. Franklin get blown sky high.  John was just drifting off when he heard a quiet, tentative "John?"  And then John had listened with compassionate understanding to Sherlock's embarrassed confession that he was unable to sleep because he was afraid he would have nightmares and that he just wanted to go home, really, to a place with tea and Mrs. Hudson and cases that didn't involve terrifying drug-induced hallucinations.  And John had said, "Come on, then," and they got dressed and walked into town together in the middle of the night, and if John's hand found its way into Sherlock's after a while, nobody mentioned it.

John had finished by then, and after rinsing the suds from Sherlock's body one last time, he leaned past Sherlock to pull the plug out of the bath.

"Can you stand?" he asked, already looking forward to the day when he would not have to ask that question before every simple maneuver.  

Sherlock nodded, and John helped him up and wrapped him in the towel that he already had waiting, feeling very much like he was taking care of a small child, only the small child was Sherlock, and _god_ this was weird, only it wasn't, really, because John taking care of his detective - wasn't that the way it had always been?

 

\--

 

Compared with all the times John had literally dragged Sherlock to his bedroom when he refused to sleep, getting Sherlock into bed now was alarmingly easy.  On top of his preexisting exhaustion, the bath had left Sherlock pliant with warmth and sleepiness, so it was quite a simple matter to help him into pajamas and then into bed. 

He was relieved that Sherlock had gone to bed without complaint, but much less relieved to realize how dreadfully quiet the flat was once he was alone.  It had been a very long time since John had been in 221B without company; he had rarely been alone in the early days of the flatshare, and recently he only came by as a visitor.  The only comparable experience was the first few weeks after Sherlock’s  faked suicide, that brief period before John had moved out.  The flat had been so quiet then, so still, and the atmosphere was so similar now that John found himself glancing with unusual frequency at the Belstaff coat thrown over the couch and the small bag of belongings that Sherlock had had with him at the hospital to remind himself firmly that the detective was very much here.

Those visual reminders did little to cut through the silence, though, and if John found himself making tea much more loudly and clumsily than usual – well, it had been a while since he had used this particular kettle.

He ignored the fact that he had made tea for Sherlock not half an hour ago.  John Watson was many things, a man who clung tightly to his excuses chief among them.

Once the tea had been made and let to cool and drunk and cleaned up after, John had little to do.  He tried to read, but was too restless to pay much attention.  Eventually, he gave up on distractions and decided instead that it would be more productive to learn more about dealing with the situation.         

 _Gunshot wound aftercare._ It was not the most pleasant thing to be Googling, but at least he was looking at recovery instead of funeral planning.

After about a quarter hour of researching, John was interrupted by a noise from Sherlock’s room, one he could not quite identify.  It wasn’t a shout, exactly, more of a gasp –

John was frozen for a moment, startled, but another sound brought him jumping to his feet and all but running to Sherlock’s room.  He knocked, but the only response he received was a yell, this one sounding much more panicked than the first two.  It was followed by a sound that was almost a sob.

John entered the room tentatively and his suspicions were immediately confirmed.  Sherlock was curled in on himself, sheets a tangled mess, a sheen of sweat covering his whole body – he was having a nightmare.  Sherlock Holmes was having a nightmare.

It was not always wise to startle a person in the throes of a nightmare; John knew this from personal experience.  However, John’s dreams usually involved situations that caused him to instinctively fought back against anyone trying to wake him; Sherlock’s might not.  Either way, judging by the sounds he was making, Sherlock was either in extreme terror or extreme pain, perhaps both.

John went to the bed and sat on the edge of it.  “Sherlock,” he said softly, not wanting the man to be too startled upon waking.  “Sherlock, wake up.  Sherlock.”  He reached out and gently shook his shoulder.  Sherlock only curled tighter and whimpered slightly.  “Sherlock,” he said again, louder.  “It’s alright.  You’re having a nightmare, it’s okay.  Please wake up.”

“John,” said Sherlock, but he was not awake.

“I’m right here.  You’re alright.”

Sherlock was beginning to move around, almost thrashing, and John reached out to still him so that he would not aggravate the healing wound.  His cries were growing more frantic.  “John.  _John!”_

“Sherlock!” John shouted.

Sherlock woke suddenly, shooting upright so fast that John flung a hand out to steady him.  He jerked away from the touch, backing away until he was pressed against the wall, still trembling violently and gasping out panicked half-sobs.

“It’s alright,” said John as gently and soothingly as he could.  “It was just a dream.”

Sherlock leaned his head back against the wall and pressed a shaking hand over his mouth, trying to control his breathing.  “I’m okay,” he said after a while.

John smiled slightly.  “I know you are.”

Sherlock looked at him then for the first time since waking.  His eyes were red and swollen even though no tears had fallen from them.  John thought he had never seen the detective look so incredibly vulnerable. 

“John,” said Sherlock.

“I’m here,” John replied, and after a moment added, “Is there anything I can do?”

Sherlock only shrugged in response, but seemed a little less tense, moving away from the wall again and closer to John.

John had never been more out of his depth, a feeling he was quickly growing accustomed to.  He had dealt with Sherlockian nightmares on only one other occasion, and it hadn’t been anywhere near this severity.  Also, it had been before…everything else.  Back in a time when John could just crawl into Sherlock’s bed and make everything better because that was his _job._ Taking care of Sherlock Holmes was both his greatest privilege and his greatest responsibility.  That ambiguous but simple relationship was a casualty of Sherlock’s suicide that John would never stop missing.

     

 

**Author's Note:**

> I"M SO SORRY THE END IS REALLY ABRUPT I'LL UPDATE SOON I PROMISE
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to comment any suggestions or feedback you may have and I'll try to get more up as soon as possible.


End file.
